


Love Me to Death

by ellacj



Series: 52 Weeks of Swan Queen [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff and Angst, I'm so sorry, Muggle!Emma, Post-Hogwarts, Wizard!Henry, part two of two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellacj/pseuds/ellacj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them."</p><p>-George Eliot</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Me to Death

**Author's Note:**

> The continuation and conclusion of the Week 3 piece. I accidentally finished early and am terrible at waiting so here, have it early.

“You’re Henry’s birthmother?”

The woman smiles sheepishly. “Emma Swan.”

Regina nods once, a million and one thoughts racing through her head all at once. “Well. Thank you. For bringing him home.”

“Yeah, of course. I, uh, I would’ve called ahead – save you some worry – but he wouldn’t give me a phone number.”

“Yes, Henry can be quite stubborn,” Regina says quietly. There’s a long pause, until she clears her throat. “I should go check on him.”

“Right.” Emma nods. “I left my number in the kid’s backpack. Just uh… let me know he’s okay, yeah?”

Regina smiles weakly and reaches up to brush a stray piece of hair out of her eyes. “I’ll give you a call once he’s asleep.” She doesn’t wait for a reply before she turns and goes inside, leaving Emma standing outside with a questioning frown written across her face. Closing the door behind her, she sighs and leans against it, willing her hands to stop shaking.

“Are you all right?” Zelena asks, making Regina jump in surprise. “He’s here now, he’s safe. Everything’s okay.”

Regina shakes her head. “It’s not Henry. It’s her.”

Zelena frowns, tilting her head to the side. “Did she say something?”

“No. She… Zelena, it’s _her_. She’s the woman from my boggart.”

“Oh my god.” Zelena takes a deep breath, looking straight into Regina’s eyes. “What do you need me to do?”

“I need to avoid her at all costs. I can’t get attached to her.”

“Are you sure that’s really best?”

Regina sighs. “I already know something is going to happen to her. I can’t lose anyone else I love.”

 

For the next week, Zelena does her best to act as a buffer between Emma and Regina, which proves to be much more difficult than expected. Emma’s everywhere – at Granny’s eating breakfast when Regina goes in for her morning coffee, talking to Graham at the sheriff’s station when Regina goes in to meet with him, even sitting in her hideous yellow bug across the street when Henry goes into and out of school.

She tries to swear it’s just coincidence, just the fact of living in a small town, but somehow it feels almost intentional on Emma’s part. She’s given up trying to encourage Regina to talk to her at this point; she’s insistent on keeping her distance.

However, after a week and a half, Zelena inevitably slips up.

“Hey,” Emma calls, jogging across the street to where the two of them are waiting for Henry to exit the school building.

“Miss Swan, what are you doing here?” Regina asks coolly.

“You didn’t call me.”

“What?”

“You said you would call me and tell me how he was doing. You didn’t.”

Regina sighs. “That was over a week ago, Miss Swan. And besides, you can see with your own two eyes that Henry is doing just fine.”

Emma shifts uncomfortably on her feet. “Right.”

“If that’s all.” Without waiting for an answer, Regina breezes off into the crowd of children to search for Henry.

“What’s her deal?” Emma asks, watching Regina go.

Zelena frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Why’s she being so… uptight? I mean, I’m not asking to have sleepovers and exchange bracelets. I just think it would be good for the kid if we were friends.”

Zelena sighs and shakes her head, glancing down the path Regina took. “Regina’s been hurt one too many times,” she says quietly. “She can’t afford to make friends.”

 

The doorbell rings that night just as the three of them are sitting down to dinner, and Regina gets up to answer it.

“Hey,” Emma says as she comes into view. “Wait, don’t close the door on me.”

Regina sighs. “I don’t know what you think is going to happen, but we aren’t going to be friends, Miss Swan.”

“I know. I’m not here to make friends. I just to want us to be on good terms for the kid’s sake.”

“His name is Henry.”

Emma blushes. “Sorry. For Henry’s sake. Because I’m not trying to take him from you, Regina, but I’m not going anywhere. All I want is for us to be able live peacefully. Is that okay?”

Regina chews on the inside of her cheek, trying with all her might to fight the part of her that wants to just pull Emma inside and invite her to dinner. Afraid to open her mouth lest she do just that, she remains silent.

“I brought a peace offering.” Emma reaches into her gigantic eyesore of a purse and pulls out a red thermos. “I may not be a culinary genius, but I’ve been told I make pretty good cocoa.” She smiles. “I’m staying with Mary Margaret if you ever want to come by and talk.” And then she’s gone, walking down the front path to her car and driving off.

Regina stays outside on the porch for a moment longer, trying to process what just happened. She mentally slaps herself for the small smile on her face. She can’t afford to get attached to Emma Swan; she really can’t. And yet… images race through her head of herself and Emma. Getting coffee, watching Henry perform in the school play, kissing for the first time – _no_.

She shakes her head and goes back inside. She’s _not_ going to fall in love with this woman.

“What was that about?” Zelena asks as Regina pulls three mugs from the cupboard to pour the cocoa.

“Just someone dropping off a gift.”

 

“She really said all that?” Zelena asks, eyebrows raised. Emma must have really taken their talk to heart; she’s impressed.

Regina nods and sips her cider. Henry’s just gone to bed, which is exactly the time that Regina and Zelena have cider-and-serious-talk time every night. It’s a big help to get things sorted out in their lives – something Regina obviously needs right now. “She wants me to go and see her.”

“She’s got a place to live already?”

“She’s staying with Miss Blanchard, but that’s not the point,” Regina says, eyes narrowed.

Zelena shakes her head. “Right, sorry. Are you going to go?”

“No. I can’t, you know that.”

Arching one trim eyebrow, Zelena searches Regina’s face for any sign of – well anything, really. Anything but the emotionless front she likes to put on when she’s afraid. “But do you want to?”

Regina’s silent for a long moment. Then she sighs. “I think I might.”

Zelena smiles. As much as she doesn’t want to see the woman who’s basically her little sister get hurt, she really does think that it’d be good for Regina to get to know Emma. And though she won’t say it aloud for fear of upsetting Regina, she kind of hopes they’ll fall in love. A chance at happiness is too big to throw away over a boggart that shows her a _possible_ future. Especially for Regina. “I think you should, then.”

“Have you not been listening to anything I’ve been saying? I can’t afford to bond with her.”

“I know you’re afraid, Regina, but not for the reasons you think you are.” At the questioning look on Regina’s face, Zelena explains. “You’re afraid to get close to anyone because almost everyone you’ve been close with has either left you or had horrible things happen to them and you’re terrified the same will happen to Emma. But that boggart is only something that _could_ happen, not something that _will_.”

Regina sighs. “I can’t-”

“Love isn’t weakness, you know.” Zelena reaches forward to place a hand on Regina’s knee and squeezes gently. “Henry and I should have been enough to prove that to you.”

“That’s all I’ve ever known,” Regina whispers. “I can’t have any more weaknesses.”

“Loving someone isn’t weakness. It’s strength.”

 

Regina takes a deep breath as she walks down the hall to Emma and Mary Margaret’s apartment, her hand raised halfway to knock before she realizes she’s empty-handed. Emma brought her something; she should really bring a gift in return. She glances around once, twice, three times to make sure no one’s around before pulling out her wand and whispers the spell to transport an apple pie (she always has at least one prepared – they’re both Henry and Zelena’s favorite) from her refrigerator into her hands.

She knocks.

Emma opens the door a minute later, a bright smile appearing on her face when she sees Regina. “Hey!” she greets her. “Come on in.” She leads Regina into the kitchen to set down the pie (with an added “wow, that looks really good” from Emma) before sitting down on the living room couch. “So. What’s up?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why’d you make the trip over here?”

Regina’s face flushes. She hadn’t really thought of a reason to come over, to be quite honest. She just did. “You invited me, so I came,” she says simply.

Emma grins. “Well, I’m glad you did.” She glances around the room, presumably looking for something to talk about, until her eyes zero in on something behind Regina’s shoulder. “You ever see _The Breakfast Club_?”

 

Regina comes home from Emma’s house unable to stop talking about it, and it puts a smile on Zelena’s face. Her sister seems to have completely forgotten about the boggart, and she’s clearly much happier without it weighing on her mind. Henry’s happy too now that his moms are finally getting along. Things are definitely getting better for the Mills’, that’s for sure.

Emma comes over sometimes, exchanging small smiles with Zelena as though they have some inside joke Regina doesn’t know about. And maybe they do; who can really know for sure?

Zelena catches the two of them kissing once. They’re hiding in Regina’s bedroom like teenagers hiding from their parents, and Regina actually has the nerve to act embarrassed when they’re caught. As though they were subtle with their feelings toward each other. “Just don’t get her pregnant,” Zelena teases, reveling in the way both their faces flush with embarrassment. “Lord knows one child is enough to handle.”

Henry’s absolutely thrilled about this new development, to everyone’s relief. Regina especially was nervous about Henry’s reaction, and Zelena thinks she may be even more relieved than her at his acceptance.

It gets to the point where Emma’s been practically living with them for two months before Regina invites her to officially move in, thanking Zelena a hundred times over for prompting her to get over her irrational fears. And of course, Zelena brushed aside her thanks, telling her sister to simply focus on being happy.

Which is why she feels especially guilty when Regina’s fears turn out to be completely rational.

 

Regina’s just settling into a quiet life with Emma when it happens. They’ve just sent Henry off to Hogwarts for his first year (Emma freaked out when she first saw Regina perform magic, but has since grown used to it), and the house is the quietest it’s been in eleven years. Regina’s all but forgotten about her boggart by now. Because how can she think about that when the most beautiful woman in the world loves her for everything she is – and everything she isn’t?

And then it strikes.

It doesn’t come in the form of a violent attack like it did all those years ago; no, it creeps up on them much more slowly than that. It starts off with a cough, nothing more. She takes some pills and goes on with her life. And then the bathroom sink is stained red and there’s bloodstained toilet paper when no one in the house is on their period and Regina may be blinded by love but she’s not an idiot.

“Emma,” she says softly one night. “You need to see a doctor.”

“I’m fine,” Emma insists.

“You’re coughing up blood. This isn’t going away, Emma. Please.”

And then Emma sighs and takes Regina by the hand, kissing each finger individually before meeting her worried gaze. “Fine. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll go see a doctor. But seriously, it’s nothing.”

It’s something.

The doctor recognizes it, says there’s no name that she knows of and no cure that anyone can find. Says she doesn’t want to say it but says it could be fatal. Says it’s almost always fatal. She gives Emma some expensive medication that’ll slow down the effects and Regina insists on buying them simply because Emma insists she won’t pay that much for a few extra months.

Because that’s all they’re really doing, she says, is buying time. Not treatment, not a cure, just a few extra months of pain and worry. But Regina pays for it anyway, because a few extra months with Emma is worth everything to her.

Zelena cries when they tell her and says it’s her fault for encouraging Regina to be Emma’s friend, but Regina won’t let her take the blame. No one made her fall in love – she did that herself.

They live their entire lives in a year, travel around where they can, watch movies of places where they can’t, bring Henry home from school so they can hug and kiss him every night and tell him how much they both love him. And so that Regina and Henry can respond with how much they both love Emma. Emma keeps taking the pills at Regina’s insistence, even though they both have to watch her get worse and worse. But Regina keeps refilling the prescription; keeps buying them time on a maxed-out credit card and murmuring to Emma every night that she’ll be okay, even if Emma doesn’t believe her.

It’s a few months before she stops believing herself.

She’s not sure when she really stops. Somewhere between watching glowing skin grow pale and strong hands wither and shake she just starts to lose hope. Or maybe it’s the chunks of blonde hair she finds in the shower drain. When Emma’s admitted into the hospital full-time, Zelena hugs Regina while she cries. But even after all of it, she doesn’t wish it were different. She’s loved every second she spent with Emma.

If only there were a few more of them.

“Will you marry me?” Regina asks her, gripping her hand as she sits beside a bed surrounded by machines and tubes all connected to a woman she never thought could look so small.

Emma tries her best to smile but it just comes out as a grimace. “Probably not.”

“Do you want to marry me?”

“Yeah,” the hoarse voice says from the bed. “More than anything.” And her face lights up for the first time in weeks when Regina slips a ring onto her finger, and there’s the briefest flicker of hope that everything might just be okay.

“Do you regret it?” Emma asks once. “Being with someone who’s dying?”

Regina sighs. This isn’t common for them; talking during her visits. Emma says it doesn’t hurt too bad but Regina knows she’s lying. Most of the time they just sit in silence and try not to think about the inevitable. “No.”

“Why? You could have lived a fairytale. But right now you’re living a tragedy.”

Regina smiles sadly and gently squeezes Emma’s hand. “You’re right, this isn’t a fairytale, but it isn’t a tragedy, either. This is simply our story. And I don’t regret a single word of it.”

Those words end up being the last of the story.

Emma dies later that night, and the nurses assure them that she went peacefully in her sleep. They have the funeral the following week. Open casket, because Regina feels she needs to prove to everyone that death isn’t as beautiful as they say. It’s pale and it’s sick and it’s nothing but emptiness where there used to be so much. Regina’s the first and the last to pay her respects, and as she approaches the casket to close it for burial, something catches her eye.

It’s Emma’s ring from when they got engaged to never be married. Slowly, Regina reaches down and slides the diamond from a cold, stiff finger, gently slipping it into her pocket. Then she closes the casket. She closes the casket, and she wonders.

She wonders what filled that spot in her heart before Emma did. She wonders if maybe her heart was already full, and Emma simply made more room for herself which she then vacated. She wonders if hearts are like vaginas, if they can be stretched by hands and love and babies and eventually return to their original size. She almost smiles – that’s exactly the kind of completely inappropriate analogy Emma would make.

Regina was terrified of losing Emma. But now, now that she’s actually lost her, she feels strangely at peace. Without that fear looming over her head, she feels like maybe she can make it through this. Feeling Zelena’s hand at the small of her back, Regina turns and takes Henry’s hand to leave the church. It’s just the three of them again, but Regina’s got a strong feeling that Emma will turn up in the mansion one way or another.

She leaves with her family, the car too quiet without Henry and Emma bickering about comic book characters and Zelena and Emma discussing the best way to deal with curly hair. The house is strangely big when she walks in, but that’s not what she’s paying attention to. No, what she’s looking at is the translucent silver face grinning at her when she walks inside. The ghost grins. “Hey.”

Regina smiles, gently brushing a tear from her eye. “Welcome home, Emma.”


End file.
